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uut throwing any great or useful light upon the 

 subject. When we calmly reflect, we can easily see 

 that, all such speculations must be vain, as incapable 

 of leading to any satisfactory result. Before we are 

 even in a condition for entering; upon the inquiry, 

 why, in certain cases, the animal should deviate from 

 its type, we should be in possession of a satisfactory 

 answer to the previous question, namely, why it 

 should follow that type in the majority of instances 

 to which the monstrous cases form the rare excep- 

 tions ? and, as we have no means of getting correctly 

 at this cause of the general uniformity of nature's 

 productions, it would be in vain for us to endeavour 

 to settle the physiology in the case of monsters, not- 

 withstanding the superstitious associations which the 

 ignorant are so prone to couple with them. Indeed 

 it is chiefly with the view of pointing out the useless 

 and unsatisfactory nature of such inquiries that we 

 have introduced the article MONSTER even in this 

 brief notice. 



Monsters are looked upon by the ignorant very 

 much in the same light as miracles, and,like these, they 

 are deviations from the ordinary course of nature. So 

 far all is well ; but there is an association borrowed 

 from the miracle which mixes up with the popular 

 notion of the monstrous production, and which is 

 really of mischievous tendency, as giving a most 

 erroneous turn to the thought. The miracle is always 

 supposed to be the result of some supernatural 

 agency external of the common laws of nature, and in 

 opposition to them ; and, such being the case, the real 

 miracle is looked upon as a special and immediate 

 act of the Divinity, for the purpose of accomplishing 

 some end which could not be arrived at by the com- 

 mon laws of nature. Historically we know but one 

 subject to which there was the slightest necessity for 

 the application of miracles, namely, the establishment 

 of those doctrines of Divine Revelation, which, being 

 above the utmost extent of the human powers in 

 their peculiar and mysterious parts, do not admit of 

 the same kind of demonstration as facts or deductions 

 in ordinary philosophy. Miracles of this kind were 

 required for only a very limited time. That time has 

 long since gone by ; and every supposed miracle 

 which has been mentioned since has been a mere 

 imposture, and abuse of the credulity of mankind, 

 resorted to for the purpose of accomplishing some 

 end which could not be accomplished by fair and 

 philosophical means. 



As the production of a monster is a deviation from 

 the ordinary course of nature as well as a miracle, 

 the one is very apt to be confounded with the other ; 

 and weak, though well-meaning persons, are very apt 

 to suppose that the monstrous production is the 

 result of a special interference on the part of the 

 Almighty, as well as the true miracle. If, for instance, 

 one of a family shall have the misfortune to be born 

 with any monstrosity, the vulgar conclusion is, that 

 some sin of the parent is thereby visited upon the 

 child ; and, even if it should happen in the case of 

 a domestic animal, there is a tendency to look upon 

 it as the punishment of some transgression com- 

 mitted by the master of that animal. 



These are errors which struggle with great stub- 

 bornness against all the enlightenment of the present 

 times ; and, although unintentional errors, they are 

 very mischievous ones, as tending to lay the axe to 

 the roots both of sound thinking and of correct moral 

 feeling, it becomes every one's duty to assist in the 

 exploding of them. 



The previous question, upon which we must remain 

 for ever ignorant, ought to keep us right here. We 

 do not, as has been hinted, know why species are, 

 generally speaking, true to their types ; but we do 

 know that artificial treatment can, without breaking 

 down the type so as to render it monstrous, change 

 it to a very great extent. These changes are not, 

 however, produced by simple volition on the part of 

 man ; for a man may wish and will long enough be- 

 fore he can change a Shetland pony into a dray horse, 

 or a cart horse to a racer. Means must be employed, 

 and persevered in, proportional to the change which 

 is desired ; and, if the means have been properly tried 

 by former experience, they never fail of success. 

 But the deviation from the type of the species as to 

 form is merely a physical result, as well as the change 

 of all the parts without deviation in any one of them ; 

 and therefore it must depend on physical causes just 

 as much as they do. Consequently, when we speak 

 of a monster as a deviation from the laws of nature, we 

 speak incorrectly. The truth is, that the deviation is 

 not from the law, but of the law ; and unless there 

 were a specific cause in the individual case, adequate 

 to the production of the monstrosity, the monster 

 would not be produced. It is true that this new law, 

 which produces a result different from the ordinary 

 one, is a law of which we do not possess, and possibly 

 cannot acquire, the knowledge ; but, notwithstanding 

 this, we have no more right to say that there is a 

 special interference of the Divinity required to pro- 

 duce the deviation from the type in the one instance, 

 than we have to say that there is a similar interference 

 for the purpose of preserving the type in every case 

 where it is not departed from. Deviation or no de- 

 viation, the laws which God has from the beginning 

 established for the world's economy are perfectly 

 adequate to carry on that economy ; and true to those 

 laws physical nature works, and every modification 

 of the law, whether it be known to us or not as a 

 cause, is as necessarily followed by a corresponding 

 modification of the result as effect follows cause, and 

 expresses the measure of its nature and efficiency in 

 any other case. 



MONTEZUMA (Mocino and Sessi). A genus 

 containing as yet only one highly-ornamental tree, a 

 native of Mexico, belonging to Bombacets. Generic 

 character : calyx hemispherical and truncate, the rim 

 sinuated ; petals five, and large ; stamens spirally 

 twisted round the style, stigma club-shaped ; berry 

 globate, four or five-celled, each with many seeds. 



MOON SEED is the Menispermum Canadcnse of 

 Linnaeus, a climbing shrub commonly planted for 

 covering bowers, and increased by dividing the roots. 



MOON TREFOIL is the Mcdicago arborea of 

 Linmeus, an evergreen shrub, a native of Italy, long 

 introduced into our gardens. It is usually kept in 

 greenhouses, but will bear the open air with but a 

 slight protection from frost. Seeds or cuttings. 



MOR^EA (Linnaeus). A genus of bulbous plants, 

 chiefly natives of the Cape of Good Hope, and be- 

 longing to the splendid order Irideee. Generic cha- 

 racter : spathe elongated, and somewhat scaled ; 

 corolla six-parted, interior petals smallest ; stamens 

 opposite the gashes of the pistil, filaments partly 

 united ; pistiilum in three petal-like divisions ; cap- 

 sule three-celled and many-seeded. These bulbs re- 

 quire the same treatment with other Cape sorts ; that 

 is, potted in light sandy loam and leaf mould, kept 

 dry while dormant, but duly supplied with water 



